


Embryo

by Laintadhg



Series: States of Change [2]
Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mostly Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, headcanons ahoy!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 20:01:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12395175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laintadhg/pseuds/Laintadhg
Summary: If he meant what he said and wasn’t just being a mouthy turd, at one point he had considered her his mother, the one person in the world who would love and protect him unconditionally.





	Embryo

The room was near-silent when Seifer entered, the gentle whirr of the ventilation fan the only sound filling the space between himself and the woman seated just inside. His fingers were still on the doorknob, warming the brass fixture as he tamped down on the flight response his body was trying to act on. She wasn’t who she looked like, not really, not anymore, but that didn’t matter to his instincts.

 

“…Hello, Seifer,” She ventured softly, her large golden eyes meeting his with a warmth he didn’t understand. The last time he’d seen those eyes, they had been sneering down at him with a cold hate burning like dry ice. This was the first time since the end of the war, since they’d both come out of time-compression, that they’d met in person.

 

“…Edea,” He replied, realizing that closing the door and sitting down right about then would be conducive to having a conversation with her. He let go of the handle and took even, careful steps towards the chair across from her at the small table. He was just resting his hands on the table when the door clicked shut and he twitched from the sound, looking to the side in irritation as he tried to control the impulse.

 

Across the table, she bit her lip and looked down at the glossy wood in shame, knowing she was the reason he was so jumpy. _I’m so sorry, Seifer_ , She thought to him, their telepathic link weak, but still there. It was unusual for a Knight to be able to hear the inner song of any Sorceress but the one he served, but theirs wasn’t a usual case. Time, space, and powerful magic had warped the bond they shared and made it unique in its own twisted way.

 

“Don’t,” He shot back quickly, shaking his head to get the ring of her voice out of his brain. Wincing, he realized that sounded especially cruel and he tried to explain himself, “Not that, not the….’Sorry’. Just the talking in my head thing. I’ve had enough of that shit for seventy lifetimes.”

 

“Language,” She tutted softly, not even really meaning it. He was a grown man and she had no authority over him whatsoever. Still, old habits die hard.

 

“Sorry, ‘crap’. I’ve had enough of that ‘crap’.” He rolled his eyes at her and crossed his arms, his gaze settling on a vase across the room to keep from staring at her. He knew why he was there, why she wanted to talk to him, but he didn’t have to like it. They sat in silence, the fan a comforting white noise to them both, until he sighed and gave in. “So…you, what? Wanna talk about the trial? About the war? What?”

 

“...Whatever you feel comfortable with,” She replied, words slow like she was talking to a child. In some ways, she still thought of him like that – as her little boy, her _son_.

 

Peering around the room, Seifer suddenly felt awfully suspicious about the reason for the meeting. He still hadn’t gone to trial, hadn’t been charged with anything they could really prove yet. Maybe it was a setup.

 

“You wearin’ a wire? Or they got this place rigged up with surveillance? C’mon, Eeds, you didn’t let them talk you into narc-ing on me, didja?” He asked, narrowing his eyes at her sharply. It wasn’t a joke, but somehow she was smiling at him, laughing with the lilt of a songbird behind her small, delicate hand. A hand that didn’t have as many scars on it five years ago.

 

Shaking her head, she sighed and gave him a sweet look. “No, no. I scanned the room myself before I sent for you. Quistis arranged it for us. She…understands the gravity of our situation. No ‘narc-ing’ on my part or anyone else’s.”

 

“Aww, _fuuuck_ …Quis knows? Like, _knows_ knows?” Seifer didn’t want to believe that Edea would have told anyone about the intimate details of their relationship during the war, but then again, it may have been all that she could do to save herself when she was on trial.

 

“ _Language_ , Seifer, really. I raised you better,” She warned, much more serious this time, “But…yes, Quistis does _know_ …I had to tell her, there…there were circumstances beyond my control and I was just so scared after everything had happened…I knew she was the only one who would understand, who wouldn’t let it slip to the media. You have to believe me, Seifer, I didn’t want anyone to know. It’s…shameful…that it happened.”

 

“Shameful doesn’t cut it, Eeds. You raised me, sent me off to become a trained killer for ten years, then when you pop back up, being possessed by an evil whore no less, I get mindfucked and roped into being a massive world-dominating douchebag because I tried to save you. Oh, and someplace in the middle there you fucked me with a magical strap-on.”

 

“Seifer!” She shouted, her voice never truly raising, but certainly getting her astonishment across.

 

He sneered and raised a finger, as though remembering something. “Oh, sorry, did I forget about the terrorism, stolen youth, and _insane_ amounts of cunnilingus I was forced to perform regularly?”

 

_ENOUGH!_ Her voice rang in his head as though a gong had gone off between his ears while shotguns fired on both sides. His hands shot to his head as the echo rattled around in his head and shot her a nasty look.

 

“Beans and _rice_ , woman!! What the _hell_ did I say earlier?!” He barked, not realizing the faint glow from under the table as Edea cast silent on him.

 

“Seifer, you should have left that attitude at the door. This was to be a civilized discussion between adults about the unfortunate things that transpired between us during the war, not a screaming match between a mother and son.”

 

The ex-knight sneered as he felt the magic wash over him, mouthing an entirely silent ‘What the fuck?’, despite his best efforts to speak.

 

_You’re_ not _my mother,_ He thought at her instead, the tone biting, _Not anymore_.

 

She opened her mouth to speak, but paused as the gravity of the words hit her. If he meant what he said and wasn’t just being a mouthy turd, at one point he had considered her his mother, the one person in the world who would love and protect him unconditionally. She, too, had always felt closest to him out of her children, seeing herself as someone who could provide him with stability and structure, someone who could teach him to trust and love safely. But that precious closeness had been taken from them by Ultimecia and her wretched war.

 

“You were a skinny little thing when you came to me,” Edea began, her mind miles away from the small room, back on the rocky coast of Centra in a dusty, drafty orphanage, “Barely thirty pounds, even though you were tall for a four-year-old. All knobby knees and ribs, tiny scars dotting your arms, and your hair – which you proudly stated you had cut yourself – was all angles and varied lengths tucked messily into an elastic band...Your eyes, though, they were _sharp_. You didn’t say much, but those eyes paid attention to everything, watching everyone at once. Noting which adults lied to you, which ones faked concern, which ones were just trying to shove you off to the next caretaker. So many things running through that little mind, but you still didn’t miss a beat.

 

“I had a file on you, of course, passed along to me before you arrived, and, honestly…it worried me. It made mention of your mother’s abuse, classified as extreme Munchausen by proxy, and your father’s alcoholism and subsequent neglect, but those were run of the mill compared to the accident that brought you in…Do you...remember it?”

 

By then, the silence had faded from Seifer and he’d been listening quietly of his own volition, his hands having fallen away from his ears and crossed over his chest. He would never admit it out loud, but he liked listening to Edea talk. Her voice was soothing, like a soft rain over a grassy field, constant, gentle, and calm. Well, when she wasn’t being possessed by a psychopathic time-traveler anyways.

 

“…Yeah. It gets fuzzier with time, but it’s still vivid in my dreams,” He replied after a moment, pulling the alarming memory to the front of his mind, “I mean, as vivid as it can be considering that I’d been smacked around pretty good beforehand.”

 

“That…wasn’t in your file…?”

 

“Oh. Maybe I forgot, remembered it with time, I dunno.”

 

“She had beaten you before he…? Oh, Hyne, Seifer…”

 

“Eh, it is what it is. Besides, she got what was coming to her when the old man saw her try to make me drink bleach. I might’ve even laughed when he pistol-whipped her.”

 

Edea had no words for the awful things the man in front of her was describing so drolly. She knew humor was his coping mechanism, one he’d perfected over many years of hurt, but this wasn’t funny. It was downright horrifying.

 

“But yeah. I remember their fight before he shot her. Timelife movie style, but the cautionary tale kind, not the ones with a happy endings.”

 

“…They said he called the police and then committed suicide, as well.”

 

“Right...Yeah, he kept crying and telling me he was sorry before he turned the gun on himself,” He stated bluntly, “The gunshots were the worst part. They hurt my ears, but when it was over…I dunno, it felt nice. Peaceful, which was really out of place in that house. So, I raided the cabinets and ate myself sick until the cops showed up. I think I puked on some uni’s shoes.”

 

Biting her lip, Edea nodded and held back a laugh. “You did. That officer made a point of telling me to watch my feet after you ate.”

 

Seifer breathed out a single laugh and let his arms relax from their defensive position, examining the reflection of the ceiling on the glossy tabletop. They remained silent for a short while, neither sure what to say next to the other. The words weren’t easy in this situation, but they had to be said. It was just a matter of who was brave enough to speak first.

 

“How’d she get you to be like that?” the ex-knight ventured after a moment, looking up to meet his matron’s soft golden gaze, “…Like…how’d she convince you what she was doing was right? Or even sorta justified?”

 

Edea took a deep breath and shook her head gently. “She didn’t.”

 

“…Wait, what?” Seifer’s eyes narrowed and he stared hard at the woman across the table, confused by her statement, “That’s not possible. She’s not supposed to be able to totally control a person. She can only influence us…right? Only make you do things you already had a minor inclination to do anyways?”

 

“Yes…and no,” She could see the disbelief rising across the mercenary’s features, but she paused him from interrupting by raising her hand, “When she passed her powers to me, she wasn’t just giving me magic and knowledge and superhuman strength; She placed a piece of herself in my mind. From that moment, she began rebuilding her strength and waited until she could strike again. When I started to notice I was losing control of myself, it was too late. She’d had 13 years to learn my mind and its weaknesses and she overpowered me with a snap of _my own_ fingers. If you let any Sorceress have access to your mind for that long, she’d be able to make you do anything.”

 

“So…You really didn’t do anything wrong, then. You should have been cleared immediately, why did they even bother with a trial?”

 

“I did horrible things, Seifer. Even if wasn’t in control of them, I witnessed myself doing them. And if I didn’t plead my innocence, they – they would’ve locked me up forever in a mental institution. But I’m not crazy…I…I only have the dreams _some_ times…A-and I don’t even have much magic anymore, I’m not a threat! I’m not, damn it! I-I’m not…!”

 

Turning her head, Edea’s chin trembled, brows knit together in frustration, and tears streamed down her porcelain cheeks. Her thoughts were racing so wildly through her own mind that a few of the louder ones reached Seifer.

 

_This is all her fault!_

_Why did have to be him?_

_I wish I were dead._

 

The last one hit him too hard and he couldn’t stop himself from getting out of the chair, stepping around the table, and resting a warm hand on her back. He rubbed soothing circles against the ivory cotton of her cardigan and knelt on one bended knee, eyes catching her from a lower vantage point he was all too familiar with. “Hey, enough of that.” His motivations for comforting her were muddled, someplace between caring for a mother figure and fulfilling his duty as a knight, but it was all sincere. The thought of her dying, all by itself, was horrifying.

 

“It would be so much easier for you. For all of you,” She whispered, still crying and smudging her mascara a bit, “No one would doubt you, not think I was manipulating you all from the shadows…You can’t tell me I’m wrong.”

 

“Really? Watch this,” He said with a grim smile before clearing his throat and speaking in a clear, perfectly enunciated voice, “You, Edea Kramer, are _wrong_. Look, I have to believe that you deserve this second chance, because if you don’t…I _definitely_ don’t.”

 

“Seifer, no, darling, you were just – “

 

“Just the guy who carried out her orders. Technically, Eeds, you only killed 3 or 4 people yourself. I murdered – and I mean _murdered_ , not killed in battle – dozens of people, most of whom didn’t deserve it. And I wasn’t being possessed, I _knew_ what I was doing. Granted, she was manipulating me seven ways to Sunday, and the threat of being brutally murdered and revived in perpetuity was always hanging over my head, but I could have said no. I _chose_ to say yes.”

 

His words appeared to have the opposite effect on Edea, seeing as her expression grew sadder and her tears swelled anew. “My darling boy…I’m so sorry…” She reached out to hold his free hand, but the moment their skin touched, a fierce shock struck them both.

 

“Ahhhh!! FUCK!” He shouted, falling backward away from her, his head filled with memories of the war, each flash slicing through him like a white-hot blade. It was all there, Edea’s memories of Ultimecia, of the war, of him, all from start to finish like someone was pressing fast forward and moving it through molasses at the same time. Holding the sides of his head, he roared trying to tamp down on the searing pain, but nothing helped. After what felt like an eternity, the burning pain was gone and Seifer was left panting on the ground, blood under his nails from where they’d dug into his scalp.

 

Ears ringing and vertigo making the room spin, he staggered as he braced himself on the table to try and stand up. A glance to the clock showed that mere minutes had passed, but it had felt like hours. Whatever had happened in that touch had unleashed a flash of something that felt strangely like Time Compression.

 

Finally stable on his feet, Seifer let go of the table and looked around the room, eyes widening in shock when they fell on the sight of Edea convulsing on the floor. Her eyes were rolling back in her head and drool was sloshing out of her mouth while her limbs jerked in short movements around her. Throwing her chair to the side, he skidded to his knees beside her and moved to turn her head, hesitating when he realized that there was a chance of the flash of memory happening again.

 

Grimacing, he braced himself and sighed heavily. “Fuck it.”

 

Reaching out he pulled her arms away from her face gently and turned her head to the side, doing his best not to touch any of her skin in the process. A few moments later, her seizing slowed and came to a stop, her body resting limply against the carpeted floor. Her eyes were barely open, mascara smudged on both her lids and smudging down her face in the tracks of her tears, and her breaths came shallow and raspy through the extra saliva sliding out between her lips.

 

“Eeds?” Seifer called to her softly, adjusting her clothes back into order as he gave her a visual check for injuries. There was no blood in her saliva from a bitten tongue or cheeks, no scratches on her arms, face or neck. In fact, she only seemed to sustain a few bruises on her lower legs from kicking the table and chair. Of course, that said nothing about the damage done by the seizure internally.

 

“Mmwha…what?” Her soft voice responded so quietly he nearly missed it.

 

“Shh, hey, it’s okay,” He cooed as gently as he could, brushing her hair back from her face carefully, “You had a fall there, maybe a little seizure…Not sure what happened, but you’re okay now. Can you sit up, Eeds?”

 

Looking up at him with a gentleness and trust unlike anything Seifer had ever seen directed at him before, She nodded and slowly sat up with his help. He rubbed circles on her back again and walked her through what little of his field medic check-up list that he could remember, deciding that she was at least stable enough to me moved from her spot to lean against the wall.

 

For the next hour or so, the pair sat against the wall of the tiny conference room, Seifer’s arm around her shoulder, Edea’s head resting on his chest, and talked about happier times. He tried valiantly not to be a cynical bastard and, in return, she didn’t chide him as much as she could have. What they once were to each other was no longer valid and, though that didn’t mean it wasn’t something to be remembered fondly, they both realized that it was time to move on and forge new memories as new people.

 

They parted with a kiss to the top of Edea’s head and a tight squeeze around Seifer’s chest, no painful flashes, no harsh words, just warmth and comfort where there hadn’t been any in a very long time.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this one for over a year and it gives me all the warm and fuzzies. I absolutely adore the relationship between Seifer and Edea in any form it takes and it honestly breaks my heart that the war fucked them both up so badly. Of course, I certainly make it worse by adding in all my headcanons about what she did to him under Ultimecia's control, but artistic liberties and all that make it A-OK. XD


End file.
